Posted on 10/26/2008 3:03:35 PM PDT by Molnar
The right to property and to the fruits of one's labor is not some privilege dreamed up by the wealthy elite in America to keep others oppressed. It is one of the founding principles of our nation. It serves as the great motivator that keeps the wheels of the economy turning, and is the promise that gives many the will to endure another day's rounds.
People who have attained the American dream (now, apparently, anything above the arbitrarily chosen $250,000 sticker price) have done so, almost without exception, through their own ingenuity and industriousness. Or, perhaps, they have inherited their wealth through the industriousness of their fathers and their father's fathers. This too, is their right.
Does the fact that one has succeeded lessen one's right to property and to the pursuit of happiness?
There comes a point when it becomes more costly to achieve material success than it is to sit by and allow others to be your keeper. This is not the American dream.
Thomas Jefferson wrote: "A right to property is founded in our natural wants, in the means with which we are endowed to satisfy these wants, and the right to what we acquire by those means without violating the similar rights of other sensible beings." --Thomas Jefferson to Pierre Samuel Dupont de Nemours, 1816. ME 14:490
One may not, while enjoying one's right to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness, take any of those rights away from another. The moment one oversteps one's bounds and takes another man's property, is the moment that one has infringed upon that man's right to his own property and to the pursuit of his own happiness. This problem is compounded when the Federal Government uses its power to threaten incarceration in order to take from the successful man what is rightfully his so that the Government may ensure the outcome of the endeavors of others'.
Built in to the Constitution, amidst our guaranteed rights and freedoms as human beings and American citizens is the right to pursue that which fulfills us professionally, personally, spiritually, and intellectually. Rather than guarantee the outcome of one's labor, one is guaranteed the equal opportunity to pursue the fruits of one's labor. No one is guaranteed success. What we are guaranteed is the right to pursue success.
And while we are free, under our Constitution, to succeed, we must, therefore, be equally free to fail.
Thomas Jefferson wrote: "To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father's has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association--'the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.'" --Thomas Jefferson: Note in Destutt de Tracy's "Political Economy," 1816. ME 14:466
Taking the fruits of labor from one in order to give it to another is not in the spirit of liberty, nor was it the original intention of our Founding Fathers. Redistribution of property in the form of material wealth is a profound disincentive for others to succeed. Why should a man work his entire life if for half of that time he is only working for the support of others? And why should the poor man strive to better himself materially if he knows that the moment he achieves beyond the arbitrarily set limits of "wealth," his property (money) will be confiscated and given to another who had not the ability or the inclination to better himself?
Material success does not, and cannot, fall from the sky, as Abraham Lincoln writes: “Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed.”
In closing, I would like to ponder the words of Abraham Lincoln once again:
"Property is the fruit of labor. Property is desirable. It's a positive good in the world, That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence, it's just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence."
Magnificent. Let the spirit of liberty reign so that all may be secure in what they have rightfully gained for themselves and for their families.
What are we losing whe we elect a socialist?
Everything. Everything this country stands for. But those who vote for Obama, have no clue. None.
All are possibilities for each of us and guarantees for some.
Our lives, govt in control of health care, we will die waiting for an X-ray.
I agree with you. However, when I look through the Forbes 500 richest people every year, I am struck by how few inherited their wealth. Over 90% earned it in some way, usually through starting a business.
I just don’t get it. My mother, God bless, is a God-fearing, conservative, apple-pie-baking, sweetest thing you could ever meet, and she just won’t listen to me about the detractions of Obama. I can not dissuade her from voting for him!! She’s been a died-in-the-wool democrat all her life! And she just can’t get past that!!
I’ll let it go, but it’s people like her that are going to ruin this country!! It just upsets me to no end.
Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely.
When our most basic rights to life (taken away by abortion and euthanasia under Global Healthcare,) liberty (freedom to make economic and personal choices for ourselves and for our families without government interference,) and property (which would become for all intents and purposes socialized; and we would all spend half the year working at our jobs to make enough money to pay the government for their extortionate redistribution taxes) how can we have the right to pursue happiness?
Or does Obama have a new, more “universal” and decidedly un-American vision of what should constitute happiness? Clearly.
Extortionate taxation, decreased liberty, and fealty to an over-large, unresponsive Government is not patriotic, Joe Biden. It is what started the American Revolution.
Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely.
When our most basic rights to life (taken away by abortion and euthanasia under Global Healthcare,) liberty (freedom to make economic and personal choices for ourselves and for our families without government interference,) and property (which would become for all intents and purposes socialized; and we would all spend half the year working at our jobs to make enough money to pay the government for their extortionate redistribution taxes) how can we have the right to pursue happiness?
Or does Obama have a new, more “universal” and decidedly un-American vision of what should constitute happiness? Clearly.
Extortionate taxation, decreased liberty, and fealty to an over-large, unresponsive Government is not patriotic, Joe Biden. It is what started the American Revolution.
The city of chicago thumbed its nose at the supreme court and kept the gun ban in place. Chaos in chicago is only the tip of the national iceberg of cultural disintegration. Chaos is the future for the presidency of B.O.
The only groups to benefit from this will be the Acorns, the Weather Underground and other agents of Chaos hoping for a piece of the socialist pie - 'come the revolution' that they need to justify a lifetime of hatred.
Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely.
When our most basic rights to life (taken away by abortion and euthanasia under Global Healthcare,) liberty (freedom to make economic and personal choices for ourselves and for our families without government interference,) and property (which would become for all intents and purposes socialized; and we would all spend half the year working at our jobs to make enough money to pay the government for their extortionate redistribution taxes) how can we have the right to pursue happiness?
Or does Obama have a new, more “universal” and decidedly un-American vision of what should constitute happiness? Clearly.
Extortionate taxation, decreased liberty, and fealty to an over-large, unresponsive Government is not patriotic, Joe Biden. It is what started the American Revolution.
You are exactly right Joe, but we oughtn’t to disallow the right to inherit as will most certainly occur under an Obama administration through an ever more onerous death tax.
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